30: BLINK. 30 years, 3 days, and Counting

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BLINK
Words from my dad on the occasion of my 30th birthday… presented over lunch with two squirming boys on a Sunday afternoon at a quiet spot (that is, until we arrived)

Blink.
That’s it.
Open shut them open shut them
cry then eat then sleep then cry.

Finding your voice
finding your feet
losing your fat
in come your teeth.

Long summer days
dolls in your arms
but then its your friends
and school-day alarms.

Homework and games
leaves orange brown
thick golden hair
laughs all around.

Stepping then running
then sprinting and bursting.
A long-legged blur
for the future you’re thirsting

The fresh life you sought
brings you close to new friends
who love and live with you
and form a new lens.

Through which to cast
an eye towards another
and see your reflection
embraced completely.

That embrace once returned
leads to love’s relation.
and vows and new houses
and two new creations.

Eat then work then love then sleep
open shut them open shut them.
That’s it.
Blink.

I blink and time has passed. Thirty years, three days, and counting. Days have passed and I have endured them. Some have sped too fast to catch my breath. Some have crept along too slow in between breaths.

The significance of these 10,953 days is not in the accumulation of meager wealth, success, or power. It is found in the ones who have walked these days with me. Continue reading

Beautiful is the Tapestry that Holds Me

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Pink and white seersucker trimmed in lace. Raised and tapered at the shoulders. Skimming the ground. Cinched at the waist. Clothed in my mother’s old robe, I putter around the kitchen as I make breakfast before the world stirs. Out-of-date and yet full-of-history, it is the robe my mother wore in the hospital as she spent her first hours holding on to my little life. The feel of the seersucker and lace edges. The sight of the pink and white. Her face glowing in love. My first moments.

Any attempts to remember those moments beyond the photos taken are merely imagination. And yet, I venture to guess the memories exist somewhere within me. Time may have locked them away. But all are not lost. Rather, every caring gesture, nurturing act, and tight embrace are threads within the tapestry knit within me. Continue reading

It’s a Rollercoaster

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Scribbles on a paper, torn and tattered on the edges from the trip home. “It’s a rollercoaster,” he exclaimed as he showed it off when I arrived to pick him up from daycare.

Now it sits on my kitchen table.

It stares me in the face as I prepare for the task of the day: to walk a young man through the valley of the shadow of death. Continue reading

HOLY SATURDAY: For today, there is Life.

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photoWhile the sun still sleeps and darkness hangs out, I gather my things. Race bib, shoes, headphones. I review the logistics in my head. Many steps stand between me and my first half-marathon.

My mind wanders to the sanctuary, where we sat last night in darkness at the end of our Tenebrae service. A service of shadows. A service of death. Black fabric still drapes the communion table and pulpit. As the birds began their day’s song, I know that the darkness sits in silence even now.

The complex theological questions of Good Friday swirl in my head (where was Jesus’ father, Joseph, while Mary wailed? Where was Jesus’ father, the Holy One, while love and sorrow flowed mingled down?). Yesterday the questions seemed important to think through. Today, they seem rhetorical. On the silence of Holy Saturday, faith is not about understanding the mystery. It is about communion with the mystery. Continue reading

Eleven Months and Ten Days.

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0829367999002Eleven months and ten days after his first arrival in this world, it’s time to say goodbye to the intimate role of being the source of nutrition for my youngest. As the days come to an end, I give thanks for the blessing that it was – to nourish, to comfort, to sustain this little life from my own. It was gift. It was blessing. From the early days in the hospital to the grueling first months. From the return to work with all the embarrassing mechanics to the nighttime bedtime routine with all its sweet tender moments.

Since the beginning when we savored that first golden hour after birth, there has been an invisible tether that kept our personhood interwoven together. We have been two human bodies in deep need of one another, sharing in our fragility and strength in a way in which no other human relationship can compare. Continue reading

INSPIRATION: On Being’s “Suicide, and Hope for Our Future Selves”

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For the wisdom that comes from another, I give thanks.

INSPIRATION: Krista Tippett’s conversation, “Suicide, and Hope for Our Future Selves” with Jennifer Michael Hecht about her recent book, Stay, on NPR’s “On Being”

  • amazing how a conversation about death helps us life seem more vivid and clear
  • amazing how the work of a non-religious writer is the perfect partner to my current ministry book I’m loving, The Relational Pastor.
  • amazing how a good radio program makes a 6-mile run seem not long enough.

“None of us can truly know what we mean to other people, and none of us can know what our future self will experience.” Continue reading

The Greatest Story (N)ever Told

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Three soul-friends
Three peers in ministry.
One small office.

Huddled together, her smile and the light in her eyes gave away the surprising news. After over three years, it was finally here – a positive pregnancy test.  I don’t remember what was said, but like a film clip, I remember it in the silence – wide-eyed disbelief, stunned faces, tears streaming down our cheeks.

Three soul-friends.
Three peers in ministry.
Three women pregnant at the same time. Continue reading

The Gift of Overalls

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Two years ago, I sat in our nursery and began the work of separating clothes into piles. I sorted each item by size and season. Holding up pants with the size “2T,” I marveled at the idea that he would one day be that big. They were pass-downs from a family whose three boys had outgrown them.  The printed mock-turtlenecks went into drawers but never ended up getting much use.  But everything else has now gone through the wash many times as they have adorned both boys.  Out of all the items, my favorites are the ones hanging in the closet.

This morning, I balance our 11-month-old on my hip and open wide the closet doors to survey the overalls. I run my fingers through the many different pairs.  Navy. Jean. Khacki. Red. Patterned. Plain. They have endured high chair debris, washing machine cycles, and changing table wrestling.  A family’s history hangs on the hangers. Continue reading